Monday, November 30, 2015

Every week on Monday, the Council and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher's Forum, short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture, or daily living. This week's question:What Are Your Thoughts This Thanksgiving?

"...very small scale, very modest, very intimate, very American, and absolutely gets to the key of things, which is thanking God for the blessings of this great land."

Thanksgiving is wonderful in its flexibility:

You can celebrate Thanksgiving cooking and serving at the local soup kitchen, at a restaurant, at home, with your friends, with family, hosting exchange students or other newcomers. You can do the traditional menu, and you can do ethnic dishes; do all the cooking or do pot-luck. You may get all of your family members and your friends helping you, or you may do all the work yourself. You may add other celebrations - birthdays, engagements, anniversaries, even Christmas - if your guests are traveling from far away. You may really dress up for a formal table, or you may have a casual dinner outdoors (as we did this year). Better yet, you can do a combination of all of the above, alternate, make every year different, which I really enjoy. Thanksgiving is about creativity, hospitality, flexibility, warmth.

Indeed, Thanksgiving is a sample of our country's best values.

As for the politicizing of Thanksgiving, I'm all for the simplest, most direct approach. Because that's another good thing about Thanksgiving: to learn that one earns a place at the grown-up table.

It’s that time of year where everyone starts to think of things they’re thankful for and talks about them on social media. Nurses however… we are a different bunch. Every time we go into work, we are thankful. It doesn’t take the month of November to inspire this.We are not thankful for our massive salaries or bonuses. We are not thankful for predictable jobs where we are guaranteed to finish an entire cup of coffee or get at least two bathroom breaks. We are not thankful for having every holiday off with our families. When nurses think about what they are thankful for, our list looks very different than most peoples’…We are thankful that we are able to walk, talk, and breathe on our own. We have seen exactly what it looks like when someone suddenly loses those abilities. We have seen the tears stream down patient’s faces, as they are unable to verbalize their feelings. They let their tears fall for their nurses because they don’t want their families to see them struggling.We are thankful we have jobs with sick time. We see patient after patient come in jobless that has waited until the very last second to come in to have their ailment treated because they cannot afford to pay anything or take time away from work. They wait and pray at home for things to just go away as they become exponentially worse. The man with the pain in his foot three months ago is now having it amputated. The woman with untreated diabetes whose vision was getting blurry earlier this year is now blind. The young mother of four with a respiratory infection that she hoped would go away on its own because she couldn’t take any time off… who is now intubated and sedated in the ICU, in acute respiratory distress syndrome… whose fingers and toes are starting to turn blue and purple from all of the medications she’s getting just to keep her blood pressure up… who is now a DNR.

Read the whole thing. I thought it put matters into a bit of perspective.

Laura Rambeau Lee,Right Reason : With family members working varied schedules we celebrate our Thanksgiving differently every year. We take turns hosting and everyone chips in bringing a favorite dish so no one is stressed or overworked. We enjoy the customary dishes of roasted and/or fried turkey, sweet potato casserole, stuffing, mashed potatoes and various vegetables and casseroles, along with the requisite pumpkin, pecan, and apple pies.

What struck me more this year, not just within my extended family but in the wider community, was the overall sense of everyone just going through the motions. We seem to have lost the feelings of thankfulness and celebration usually felt at this time of year.

What was once a joyful festivity celebrating the pilgrims’ first year in the new world and the promise of a better future has turned into debates over the countless sins and transgressions this country has brought to the world. The left and the media want us to be ashamed we are Americans. Black Friday deals and protests were more important topics of discussion and news reports than remembering why we celebrate Thanksgiving.

From my perspective there is an overall sense of anxiety among the people; a sense of uncertainty. People aren’t excited or hopeful anymore nor are we permitted to take pride in being “Americans.” The left is succeeding in tearing down the traditions that have united us as Americans. It seems since Obama has become president we got the change he promised, but are losing the hope.

Well, there you have it.

Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum. And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council, and the results are posted on Friday morning.It’s a weekly magazine of some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere, and you won’t want to miss it.

And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter..’cause we’re cool like that, y'know?

Friday, November 27, 2015

The Council has spoken, the votes have been cast, and the results are in for this week's Watcher's Council match up.

“I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.” " - Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher

“I have neither curiosity, interest, pain nor pleasure, in anything, good or evil, they can say of me. I feel only a slight disgust, and a sort of wonder that they presume to write my name.” - Percy Bysshe Shelley

"The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses." - Malcolm X

"Republicans and Democrats are obsessed with making sure that illegal aliens are granted citizenship. The American people are not. They're concerned about jobs, the economy, debt. They're concerned about a plundering country. They're concerned about a decaying, dying country."- Rush Limbaugh

This week's winning essay,Bookworm Room's The Wall Street Journal’s hatchet job on Ted Cruz is pretty much about what the title implies it is. As Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz continues to rise in the polls, like Donald Trump he becomes a target for character assassination and trial by media...not just for his conservative principles but in particular for his positions on illegal migration. That's an issue dear to the heart of both Leftist Democrats and as we see here, the GOP establishment. Bookworm takes this effort by Kim Strassel apart in her usually erudite fashion. Here's a slice:

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I support Ted Cruz. I realize he’s not perfect, but no candidate is. What matters to me is that his political values most closely align with mine, that he’s not scared of a fight (and, especially, he’s not scared of the media), and that he is truly smarter than just about everyone else out there. I learned yesterday, though, that Kimberley Strassel at the Wall Street Journal most definitely does not like Cruz. She wrote a savage hit piece on him essentially blaming him for ISIS’s ability to spread throughout the United States. (That spread, of course, has nothing to do with Obama’s open borders policy and the contempt he shows for every person and idea that suggests that Islam might have a problem.)

But before honing in on her perception about Cruz’s alleged security failures, Strassel first lambastes him as a rank opportunist who cares only about self-aggrandizement and refuses to take care of the GOP’s needs:

The senator’s supporters adore him because they see him in those moments when he has positioned himself as the hero. To them he is the stalwart forcing a government shutdown over ObamaCare. He’s the brave soul calling to filibuster in defense of gun rights. He’s the one keeping the Senate in lame-duck session to protest Mr. Obama’s unlawful immigration orders.

Mr. Cruz’s detractors see a man who engineers moments to aggrandize himself at the expense of fellow conservatives. And they see the consequences. They wonder what, exactly, Mr. Cruz has accomplished.

ObamaCare is still on the books. It took the GOP a year to recover its approval ratings after the shutdown, which helped deny Senate seats to Ed Gillespie in Virginia and Scott Brown in New Hampshire. Mr. Obama’s immigration orders are still on the books. The courts gained a dozen liberal judges, all with lifetime tenure, because the lame-duck maneuver gave Democrats time to cram confirmation votes through. Mr. Cruz’s opportunism tends to benefit one cause: Mr. Cruz.

So it’s Cruz’s fault we have Obamacare and it’s his fault because . . . he took a principled stand against it? (I admired that stand when he took it and I still do.) The fact is that Cruz is one of the few Republicans in Congress who actually stood by the party planks and actual promises he and other alleged conservatives made to voters since 2008. He is the only one in Congress on the right who shows the slightest bit of spine. So when Strassel writes, “but Obamacare is still on the books,” the real question shouldn’t be “How do we blame Ted Cruz?” Instead, the real question should be “How did this happen when Republicans control Congress and the purse strings?”

Strassel’s claim that, following Cruz’s principled stand, it took Republicans “a year to recover,” is patently ridiculous. Republicans have enjoyed greater electoral success in the past six years than the party ever has — and she is going to blame defeats in Virginia and Massachusetts on Cruz. That is infuriating.

The above insults are just throat-clearing for Strassel’s real issue: Ted Cruz has made us less safe than we should be because he refuses to authorize the government to turn America into even more of a police state with endless spying on citizens:

Mr. Cruz regaled the crowd about how he had opposed a proposal to intervene in Syria and how he doesn’t support “nation building.” To this he could add a few others: He has consistently voted against defense reauthorization bills that enable troop funding. And this spring he ginned up support to pass a law that undercuts the National Security Agency’s ability to use metadata to root out terror plots. Mr. Cruz, citing “privacy rights,” co-sponsored the bill, along with Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin, Al Franken and Barbara Boxer.

[snip]

It may have seemed like a good idea to Mr. Cruz at the time. But after Paris, he finds himself with a national security agenda that is increasingly at odds with the public will. Florida’s Marco Rubio (who opposed the NSA bill) had fun this week reminding Americans of the stark foreign-policy differences between himself and the Texan, noting that Mr. Cruz has supported laws that “weaken U.S. intelligence.” Mr. Rubio, who has delivered at least 10 major foreign-policy addresses in the past few years, is running as the unabashed hawk, calling for robust new U.S. world leadership. Mr. Cruz may have walked himself into playing the counterpoint—a Rand Paul stand-in.

Strassel is snide — and she is wrong. Cruz is absolutely right to place limits on the NSA and meta-data. As is developed at some length my post about a talk by Mary Theroux of the Independent Institute, all of us should be deeply suspicious about our government at this point — a government that hoards people’s information like a miser and that is becoming ever more out of control and the master, not the servant, in this country:

The government’s spying on American citizens is so enormous we literally cannot comprehend its scope. The data collection (which is in the multiple zetabytes) grossly violates our inherent Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. NSA employees before Snowden tried to blow the whistle on this beginning around the year 2000, and got ferociously persecuted by the government because of their efforts. Snowden’s spectacular leak broke that log jam.

But here’s the really important thing that Theroux said: The government gets so much data, it’s useless for the stated purpose of crime and terrorism prevention. As it comes in, it’s simply so much white noise. It certainly didn’t stop 9/11 or the Boston bombing. In this regard, think of England, which has more CCTVs per capita than any other country in the 1st world, and maybe in any world. Nevertheless, these cameras do nothing to prevent crime. As the number of cameras has increased, so has the crime rate. The data is useful only after the fact, to help (sometimes) apprehend the criminal.

Well, one can argue that ex post facto apprehension is a good thing — but it’s a good thing only if there’s been a clear violation of a pretty well known law (e.g., don’t beat people to death or don’t rob a jewelry store). We’re looking at something much more sinister here. Think of the volume of law in America and, worse, think of the staggering volumes of rules interpreting those laws.

As Theroux noted, Stalin’s chief of police famously said (and I’m paraphrasing) give me the man and I can find the crime. We Americans have a government that’s sitting on data that can be used to criminalize us after the fact the current government (Republican or Democrat or Third Party) doesn’t like us. It’s like a landmine under every American.

No thinking citizen should trust a government that produces a Lois Lerner and then protects her from indictment, even though at least one of the charges against her is that she released private data the IRS held to Democrats for partisan purposes. Nor are abusive employees the only problem. Don’t forget that the government is so dysfunctional that the Office of Personnel Management allowed personal information for millions of employees (including social security numbers and security check information) to get into hackers’ hands. Our government has proven itself to be both corrupt and incompetent, yet Strassel excoriates Cruz for refusing to give it an even longer leash.

Here’s the reality: All that meta-data the government collected has yet to be used to stop a single terrorist incident. All it does is collect more and more information that our government can use against us. It is an Orwellian nightmare that Stalin and other authoritarians of whatever stripe could only dream of having. If it had stopped the Tsarnaev brothers, or any of the other attacks on our soil, perhaps we should feel differently, but there is no evidence that it has made any real difference.

Our Founding Fathers had several guiding principles, one of which is that the good intentions of a benevolent government could not be trusted in perpetuity. The Founders loved George Washington and would have elected him King, but they were worried that a George Washington III might prefer to be a tyrant.

In our non-Council category, the winner was Victor Davis Hanson with Obama Has Just Begun submitted by Fausta's Blog. Hanson, a classist and historian as well as a stunning writer tells us baldly that this last year of Barack Hussein Obama's presidency is likely to be the most dangerous for the country - and why. This is a must read.

Here are this week’s full results. A number of our members - Fausta, GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD, Nice Deb,The Noisy Room and Puma By Design were unable to vote this week, but were not subject to the 2/3 vote penalty:

Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum. and every Tuesday morning, when we reveal the weeks' nominees for Weasel of the Week!

And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council, and the results are posted on Friday morning.It’s a weekly magazine of some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere, and you won’t want to miss it...or any of the other fantabulous Watcher's Council content.

And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter..’cause we’re cool like that, y'know?

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Welcome to the Watcher's Council, a blogging group consisting of some of the most incisive blogs in the 'sphere, and the longest running group of its kind in existence. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council.Then we vote on the best two posts, with the results appearing on Friday morning.

Council News:

Bookworm scored big this week. She was cited and linked once by the one and only Mark Steyn and once on talk radio star Mark Levin's website, thus proving the intelligence and good taste these gentlemen possess. Council Akbar!

You can, too! Want to see your work appear on the Watcher’s Council homepage in our weekly contest listing? Didn’t get nominated by a Council member? No worries.

To bring something to my attention, simply head over to Joshuapundit and post the title and a link to the piece you want considered along with an e-mail address (mandatory, but of course it won't be published) in the comments section no later than Monday 6PM PST in order to be considered for our honorable mention category. Then return the favor by creating a post on your site linking to the Watcher’s Council contest for the week when it comes out on Wednesday morning

Simple, no?

It's a great way of exposing your best work to Watcher’s Council readers and Council members while grabbing the increased traffic and notoriety. And how good is that, eh?

Monday, November 23, 2015

Every week on Monday morning , the Council and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher's Forum, short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture, or daily living. This week's question:Does Education Need Reform?

All schools must be answerable to the parents, who should have freedom to choose what schools they want for their children.

Elementary schooling is most important in a child's development. For instance, substantial research on the brain's neuroplasticity shows the importance of learning cursive handwriting during childhood. My experience is that few elementary school teachers are even aware of such research - and teaching cursive is a long, hard process which is not favored by the "teach for the test" environment.

In today's society, schools are called to do many functions that parents should. At the same time, most teachers' colleges favor a politically-correct approach of "everybody gets a trophy" instead of focusing on a sense of the value of virtue, a work ethic, and thorough respect and familiarity with the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights, all of which are American values.

As the mother of a boy, I can attest to the fact that most schools - public and private - are oriented to teaching in a way that does not foster the way male students learn. Luckily we were able to place my son in an all-boy's school that encouraged hands-on learning, and where recess was never cancelled (in fact, the youngest grades had two brief recesses in the morning). He graduated from college with honors.

Current curricula is affected by the latest trends. I remember when the local school board proposed to change (at great expense to the taxpayer) the math curriculum years ago. My husband asked "were any studies done comparing the new plan's effectiveness to the current one?" Not one member of the board had even thought of such a study. Now we have Common Core, with murky math exercises that I cannot understand even after having completed nine semesters of college and graduate school statistics, calculus, and economics.

I also believe that one of the most important things a good educator can have is a sense of the value of learning-from-failure, which goes hand-in-hand with understanding the value of healthy competition. It is tragic that the present educational environment can not comprehend either. As ever, it falls to us parents to make sure our children do.

Maggie's Notebook : We first need the will to change education. To do that we need parents insisting on it and finding a way to sacrifice whatever is necessary to put their children in good schools when their public school is failing. Most importantly, we need teachers willing to stand up for truthful text books and honest methods of teaching, grading and passing pupils. Today's teachers come out of their own education taught to hate and be victims. We are on a merry-gro-round. When our kids fall off, the merry-go-round continues to spin.

How do we get truth into textbooks? The only answer I have is that educators and parents must insist on it. If we find a way to provide truthful civics and history textbooks, then can our children CANNOT pass the SAT, aligned to Common Core, and testing is not going away anytime soon. For decades, Liberals have tried to bring racism and victimization into everyday life so that every school child is turned into that community's organizer.

We barely teach English and Math. Neither are considered important today –– nor is it important to know how to balance a checkbook or understand the stability behind a bank account yielding profit. It's more important to learn how to put a condom on a banana, or create a flier showing support for Islam. History is so obscenely distorted, we may not be able to reconcile the decades of damage already done. After all, many of our schools are staffed with those who themselves were taught to feel victimized.

Spend some time with Fox News' Jessie Watters on beaches in very influential communities, or on some of the university campuses considered the finest in the country, and you'll understand how little our children know or care about liberty and freedom.

Some parents believe their efforts have removed Common Core from their schools, but as long as English, History and Mathematics are taught to pass the current testing, Common Core lives.

The crux of all evil in our schools are the two major teacher's unions, the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). We can't fire them, even when they molest our children. Such a teacher may be removed from the classroom, but not removed from the payroll and retirement benefits. To be sure, there are excellent teachers, who suffer over this problem every day of the school year, but in our current and common environment, good teachers can do only so much.

Then there are the lawsuits –– dropped on schools on a whim –– costing thousands to defend. It's easier to give in. Banish the child that chews his pop tart into the shape of a gun. Praise the child bringing a suitcase with the guts of a clock inside that clearly looks like a bomb. That early teenage child has been told that MIT will welcome him.

Does education need reform? Such a disturbing question. I don't think there's an answer to fix it. I don't think there are enough aware parents to shield their children. I don't think there enough good teachers to fight their unions. I think there are far too many teachers/administrators teaching the poor to continue to be poor, to continue to hate others for their plight.

Laura Rambeau Lee,Right Reason : Many people today are surprised to discover the U. S. Department of Education was created during the administration of President Carter in 1979. Until then, the control of our public education resided within the states. Our Constitution makes no mention of the federal government having any duties or responsibilities related to education, and as such the DoED is an unconstitutional agency. In the past thirty-five years, the federal government has taken control of the education of our children by enticing states and counties with funding. Unfortunately these funds come with strings that have shaped everything from the curricula to what our children are eating for breakfast, lunch, and even dinner in some districts. School districts compete for these funds and policies enacted in order to receive these funds.

Right now we have the federal government colluding with private corporations, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, taking our tax dollars and turning our education system over to entities not as much interested in providing our children the best education as they are making money and pursuing the social engineering of generations of our youth. Our schools should not be laboratories and our children should not be guinea pigs to untested and unproven standards such as Common Core. The Common Core State Standards is the latest incarnation of the old No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top programs, all promising to improve standards and turn out children who are college or career ready. Charter schools and magnet schools are being sold to parents as an attractive alternative to low performing schools, but again, people must realize this is the taking of public tax money which should be going to public education and putting it in the pockets of private corporations. The states have no oversight over these charter schools and the curricula is proprietary, meaning no one is able to see or review what our children are being taught. An early charter school, International Baccalaureate, has direct ties to the United Nations through UNESCO, and promises to promote “rigorous” study and create young people who embrace multiculturalism and diversity as “global citizens” and where, as they say on their website “These programmes encourage students across the world to become active, compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right.” IB started out as a high school diploma programme, but now includes primary and middle year programmes as well as a career related programme. The Common Core State Standards appear in many ways to be fashioned after the International Baccalaureate programme.

In the 2016 presidential election we must get behind a candidate who promises to abolish the DoED and return education to the states and local districts. The future of our country resides in taking back control of our education system at the local and state levels and assuring our children are being taught the basic knowledge and skills that will carry them into being productive, competent and capable citizens into their adult lives and professions.

JoshuaPundit: I think a great many people have finally become aware of how poorly our education system works over the last decade, and that's been underlined by the nonsense that's been making headlines lately at our universities.Fixing this is going to involve several steps,and it's going to be necessary to look at the origin of the problems, break down the root causes and solve them in increments.And since part of the solution is obviously political, a lot is going to depend on the national will.

Let's look at K-12 first.

School choice is important, even vital but it merely underlines the fact that the enormous amount of money spent on public education has largely been a waste, since parents, given the choice, overwhelmingly choose private schools whom are normally able to educate students for less money per pupil and at a much higher level than majority of the public schools. My own experience is that the average 12th grader in private schools is at least 3 years or more ahead in terms of the work they're doing.

Private schools usually have these things in common - parents whom care very much about their children's education and are willing to invest in it, high standards of discipline, work ethic and conduct for the students themselves (frequently including religious and moral education as well as sex segregated classes), non-unionized teaching staffs and a much lower ratio of administrators to teachers than the large public school districts. Teachers also have much more freedom to gear the pace of learning to the classes' level rather than having to devote set amounts of time to mandatory programs that bore the more intelligent children or overwhelm those whom need more time and help. And teachers are likewise judged by their empirical results rather than tenure or other considerations.

Once public education became unionized and the Left took control of it, most of not all of the above qualities including scholastic ones were degraded over time as education became indoctrination, standards were lowered and bureaucracy became an end in itself. The tool the Left used to accomplish this was federal and state money, which is why the attendance head count in the morning has become the most important part of the day. Ironically, it's also a tool that can be used to reform the system in the right hands.

To fix K-12, the following steps are necessary in my view: Breaking apart the larger urban school districts into smaller units, de-unionizing teachers by making public employee unions voluntary and regulating the involvement of public employee unions as organizations in political campaigns, getting rid of tenure and enforcing much higher standards in teachers are the first steps.

The Federal Department of Education and the threat of withdrawing federal money can be used to accomplish much of this, and federal school choice legislation would be needed for the rest.

The next steps are more difficult, because they involve changes in attitude. First, the pernicious influence of the Left needs to be curtailed. A good start would be for textbooks to need to be approved by a new Bureau of Standards as a part of the DoE before they could be used in the public schools, and for standardized tests to be administered at different grade levels for tracking purposes of both teacher fitness and individual academic progress. And yes, I'm talking about British-style O-levels. Some children are university material and some are better served by good vocational training. Moral education also needs to be taught again at an early age in the public schools as it once was, and discipline re-established. This unfortunately is vital nowadays.

Public education should not be thought of as a right but as the privilege it is. Children and teenagers who habitually disrupt classrooms, act out in school and show disrespect for teachers should be removed to a single facility in the district more geared to their special needs so that they do not deprive the other children who actually came to be educated.

Dealing with the Universities is an extension of this.

Even private ones receive public money and subsidies as well as student loan funds. This can likewise be used as a lever to effect change.

College has become an overpriced scam particularly in the Social Sciences and Liberal Arts, which these days are anything but liberal. This could be changed with the following policies.

First, any university receiving federal funds of any kind would have to eliminate tenure, base admissions on a race neutral basis, have its curriculum meet certain federal standards as established by standardized yearly testing and allow ROTC training and military recruiters on campus in accordance with the Solomon Amendment.

In addition, the Federal DoE could easily create college curricula for various majors that could be available online at a fraction of the cost of what college costs today, and some universities already offer such programs. My daughter is now working as a special ed teaching assistant in the field she wants to make her career while taking online courses that will give her a BA in a year's time at a fraction of what even a state university would cost, and minus the indoctrination and ethos that entails nowadays.When she gets ready to start her career, it will be with actual job experience on her resume and zero debt.

Those students who want 'the college experience' as a prolonged adolescence, are legacies with wealthy alumni parents who are seeking contacts or want to use college as a talent showcase for the professional sports franchises will still likely want a typical high priced brick and mortar university, but the opportunity to obtain the same degrees at a fraction of the cost is going to appeal to a lot of young Americans.

The DoE could also enable a rebirth of vocational colleges and paid apprenticeships in various trades that would be far more practical, useful and cost less than some of the ridiculous majors many students are currently pursuing while bankrupting themselves or their parents at the same time.

Implementing these changes would take time, but the results would be seen fairly quickly. And they would revolutionize education as it is today.

Well, there you have it.

Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum. And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council, and the results are posted on Friday morning.It’s a weekly magazine of some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere, and you won’t want to miss it.

And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter..’cause we’re cool like that, y'know?

Sunday, November 22, 2015

One theme floating around the media today concerns GOP front runner Donald Trump and claims he wants to register all Muslims. It is an outright lie, but that hasn't stopped the usual suspects in the media from repeating it ad nauseum.

Now here's a transcript of what was actually said, with the edited parts CNN cropped out in boldface:

Reporter: Should there be a database system that tracks Muslims who are in this country?

Trump: There should be a lot of systems, beyond databases. We should have a lot of systems, and today you can do it.But right now we need to have a border, we have to have strength, we have to have a wall, and we cannot let what’s happening to this country happen any longer.

Reporter: Is that something your White House would like to implement?

Donald Trump: I would certainly implement that. Absolutely.

That's how a routine, common sense position on border security was turned into something very different by the outright liars posing as journalists at CNN. As I wrote earlier this week, people talking about what the media needs to do to get it's reputation back are simply clueless. The media is not interested in reforming itself.

It's exactly what Sarah Palin said it was a few years ago after her own experience with the mainstream press's witch hunt on her. 'If they can't find something, they'll just make stuff up."

Since this is Donald Trump, one shouldn't expect the GOP establishment to kick up too much of a fuss. But we can.

For starters, turn it off. Avoid watching CNN, reading its content online or linking to its material.
Inform any aggregator like Real Clear Politics that you will no longer read anything CNN puts out or click on those links.

Browse this page, write down CNN's advertisers and inform them you will no longer patronize their products and services.

Inform the RNC that you will not watch any debates where CNN is moderating and urge them to cancel the upcoming one. let them know you will not be sending any donations until CNN is barred from access to all GOP candidates, events, conventions and primaries. Make them persona non grata, without access to the story.

These are the sort of thing that affect their traffic and their livelihood and get results.

Damals wie heute...or for those whom have no German, as it was then, so it is today. Kauft nicht bei Juden indeed, just like the old days, nicht wahr?

The EU has finally passed what they refer to as 'labeling guidelines' on Israeli exports to the EU. Anything made or grown in Judea and Samaria, The Golan, or East Jerusalem must be labeled with what amounts to a Yellow Star, showing it was made in areas the EU has decided to consider not part of Israel. Aside from making rabid BDS activities easier, it shows, once again that the bureaucrats that are running the EU have picked sides and decided to support the Arab narrative that the areas in question are part of 'Palestine.' Eventually there's no doubt this 'labeling' it will spread to Israeli goods in general, which of course is the intent.

This action is being cheered in the usual quarters, and yes, it definitely is anti-semitism..or more accurately, appeasement of all those Muslims the EU has imported and their fellow travelers on the Left.

Anti-semitism can be easily defined as special rules for Jews (or in this case, the only Jewish State) that apply to no one else.Since there are a number of 'disputed territories' involving countries whom export to the EU or are even members ( Kashmir, Saudi Arabia's Nejd, Cueta and Mellila (Spain/Morrocco), Catalonia, Tibet, the Falklands, Turkey's illegal occupation of Cyprus, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Gibraltar just to name a few)that don't merit this special attention, singling out Israel with these rules is de facto anti-semitism, and part of the EU's love affair with their murderous welfare dole clients in 'Palestine.'

It especially makes no sense to expect Israel to give up East Jerusalem or the Golan, let alone all of Judea and Samaria. That's literally insane given the current realities.

And here's another reality. Not only is the EU hurting itself economically by doing this, it's badly hurting some of the people it claims it is 'helping.'

Israel imports far more from the EU than it exports, and most of what it imports are things like luxury food and drink items, clothing, cars and other items it can easily do without, provide domestically or find substitutes for. Only a small percentage of the $14 billion trade between Israel and the EU is impacted by these new, apartheid guidelines anyway, but this blatant discrimination can't help but impact that. Expect most Israelis (and a heck of a lot of Jews and Israel supporters with common sense around the world) to label/boycott EU items in return. Expect more unemployment in the already cash strapped EU.

One of the EU's biggest department stores, Berlin's KaDeWe found this out recently the hard way.

They made a decision to pull Israeli goods off their shelves in accordance with this nonsense, especially wines made in the Golan.

“We have taken the corresponding [Israeli] products out from our line of goods,” KaDeWe spokeswoman Petra Fladenhofer told German newspaper Der Spiegel. “We will, after appropriate labeling, put them back in our product line.”

Then the store apologized profusely and quickly restocked the Israeli items:

“In this matter, which was about a European Union recommendation, we acted too quickly and insensitively. We regret that this wrong behavior of the KaDeWe Group led to misunderstandings and would like to apologize for this,” the statement said.{...}

In its statement, KaDeWe stressed the fact that it stocks over 200 Israeli products and is proud to stand for “openness and internationality.”

Facebook users over the weekend launched a shaming campaign against KaDeWe, accusing it of anti-Semitism, and torpedoed its online ranking.

On the KADeWe store’s official Facebook page, hundreds of users left comments in German condemning the decision to remove the products and calling for shoppers to boycott the premises.

The official page also includes a review section where users can provide feedback on the shop. By Sunday morning, there were some 2,400 one-star ratings on the page, along with comments in English and German that recalled the Nazi era, when the store was confiscated from its Jewish then-owners.

Yes, KADeWe is one of those Jewish businesses confiscated in 1933 from its owners, who along with their families ended up in the gas chambers. No one left alive to pay compensation to after the war, so the theft became legal. The irony is maddening. It seems most Germans understood that, and let KADeWe know it in no uncertain terms.

And it gets better. Most Israeli producers whom manufacture or grow any items with a shelf life in the areas mentioned cut back on imports to the EU along time ago. They're exporting to Russia, India, East Asia, Australia, Canada, the US, non-EU Europe, the Caucasus and yes, the Arab world after repackaging.

Those growers whom grow perishable items (and given modern techniques of refrigeration and storage, there aren't nearly as many as those items as there used to be) will either continue repackaging, export to EU countries whom are pro-Israel and will wink at the boycott, or to the other areas I mentioned above that are closer to Israel. Hungary and the Bundestag faction of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU party in Germany have already sent strong signals they won't comply with this. Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Poland and other countries without large, restive Muslim populations to appease likely will wink at this as well. And Non EU Switzerland has given indications theywill almost certainly ignore this.

And those Israeli businesses that shut down or relocate? The people that will suffer most from this to any extent are those 'Palestinian' Arabs relying on jobs at these farms and manufacturers to feed their families. They are the ones who will lose their livelihood in any retrenching necessary.

Considering what the EU's real problems are right now, massive Muslim refugee migration, terrorism, declining birth rates and a stagnant economy, it's ludicrous for them to pull this out of their nether regions. But by all means, let them go right ahead. There's an interesting historical track record of what's happened to nations whom have pursued this path when it comes to Jews.

My mother always told me not to cut off my nose to spite my face, by which she meant not to pursue actions that only hurt me more than anyone else. I doubt it will happen, but the EU should listen to my mother's wisdom.

Friday, November 20, 2015

Here we have dear old Peggy Noonan and veteran journo Carl Cannon weighing in on 'how can the press get its reputation back?' Or as Real Clear Politics titled it, 'how can the press reform itself?'

I absolutely laughed out loud when I watched this.

They're assuming the press wants to reform itself. It doesn't. In fact, most of the guilty parties don't think they've done anything wrong at all. Does anyone think the moderators at that ridiculous CNBC debate remotely think they handled things poorly?

We're not, for the most part dealing with actual journalists here anyway. What we have here are largely political activists for the Left masquerading as news reporters, and in some cases it's so blatant and what amounts to campaign contributions in kind to the Democrats are so obvious that any notion of 'reform' is ludicrous. George Stephanopoulos, anyone?

And let's be perfectly clear about something. We're talking about the alphabet networks, CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, most of the Washington Post, the Associated Press and many of the other slowly dying newspapers in Democrat controlled urban enclaves. And that's without mentioning George Soros's huge, well financed media empire. The only really large outlets on the right, FOX and the Wall Street Journal manage to keep things relatively balanced in their news coverage. And even though their commentary leans right, there are still voices on the left writing columns, issuing on the air commentary and drawing a paycheck. Even smaller ones like NRO, the Free Beacon, The Weekly Standard, The Washington Times, and the Washington Examiner are the epitome of journalistic ethics in comparison to the New York Times.

The only reason the press's reputation is so bad right now, as Rush Limbaugh astutely pointed out, is because of their efforts to cover for President Obama's numerous failures and Mrs. Clinton's serial dishonesty have gotten so blatant that a great people outside the Beltway Bubble looking at what's going on in the real world are finally starting to wake up and smell the foul stench of what's being doled out to them. The act has just gotten dated and stale as more and more people are seeing how the magicians are doing their tricks. Or perhaps turning their tricks is more accurate.

That doesn't matter to these 'journalists' one bit, because they see themselves on a Holy Jihad against anyone whom disagrees with them in the least, and the facts be damned. So they will keep using their media megaphones to scream, 'Yes, the Emperor does too have new clothes!'

The Council has spoken, the votes have been cast, and the results are in for this week's Watcher's Council match up.

"“We took the liberty to make some inquiries concerning the ground of their pretensions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury, and observed that we considered all mankind as our friends who had done us no wrong, nor had given us any provocation.

The Ambassador [of Tripoli] answered us that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise." - Thomas Jefferson, 1786 in a report to John Jay, then US Secretary of Foreign Affairs

"Liberty and freedom are so very precious that you do not fight and win them once and stop. They're prizes awarded only to those peoples who fight to win them and then keep fighting eternally to hold them." - WWI Medal of Honor winner Alvin York,from a speech in front of the Tomb of The Unknown Soldier on Memorial Day, 1941.

"I studied the Quran a great deal. I came away from that study with the conviction that by and large there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as that of Muhammad. As far as I can see, it is the principal cause of the decadence so visible today in the Muslim world and, though less absurd than the polytheism of old, its social and political tendencies are in my opinion more to be feared, and I therefore regard it as a form of decadence rather than a form of progress in relation to paganism itself." - Alexis de Tocqueville, author of 'Democracy In America.'

"I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them" - Qu'ran, 8:12

"And fight with them until there is no more fitna (disorder, unbelief) and religion should be only for Allah" - Qu'ran,8:39

"Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, even if they are of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued." - Qu'ran 9:29

This week's winning essay,Joshuapundit's Why The West Is Doomed... is my reflection on recent events in Paris and elsewhere, the response of our political elites, the inherent danger in referring to rthe Paris attacks as 'terrorism' and what must be done in order to change course. Here's a slice:

Unless we make a major corrections and entirely change direction, what happened in Paris is just the beginning of the end, and the West is headed for horrendous consequences and perhaps even defeat.

It's been just a few days since the atrocity in Paris, and the response to it has been similar to other jihadist attacks. They range from the usual suspects actually excusing the brutality and talking about how it has nothing to do with Islam ala' Mrs. Clinton to misdirected remarks for 'action' that resemble nothing so much as the old carny game of whack-a-mole, this time with ISIS as the target d'jour.

Walk with me awhile and let's examine the real problems we face, along with what's really involved in solving them. I guarantee you won't be bored. I haven't seen much real analysis anywhere on how to actually win this conflict for obvious reasons,because they involve dealing with some uncomfortable realities. Here's a small spoiler preview...ISIS is neither the main problem nor even the main target.

From the first, we were lied to. According to President George W. Bush post 9/11, we were fighting a war on 'terrorism'. To President Obama and Mrs. Clinton, we're at war with 'extremism.' They all have their own reasons for misdirecting the American people, most of which have nothing to do with either the good of the United States or making any real progress in actually winning the conflict against the faux target they've created.

We're in a war, all right. And ISIS is just one of the players.It's high time we realized that rather than an ISIS problem, we have a major problem with Islam..in particular, with Islamic fascism and its adherents.And even worse, we have problems that could very well doom civilization and freedom as we know it if we continue along the present course.

The idea that we're fighting 'terrorism' or 'extremism' is especially ludicrous and using the terms are a gross insult to our collective intelligence. 'Extremism' is a vague, dubious and deliberately subjective term designed to cloak reality in fog, and 'terrorism,' after all, is a common tactic of war, designed for one purpose and one purpose only - to erode an enemy's desire and ability to make war.

In the Middle Ages, a common tactic of waging war was to try to destroy the wealth of an enemy and its ability to support warfare by sacking towns and farmlands. Another example more familiar to Americans was General William T. Sherman's March To The Sea through the most productive part of the Confederacy, leaving a swath of destruction and desolation in their path. They burned Atlanta and other cities and towns to the ground, destroyed not only military targets but civilian property and infrastructure, and lived off the land by 'foraging,' which essentially meant stealing whatever they found and leaving the civilians with a bare minimum to survive on if they were fortunate.The idea was to end the war by degrading the South's ability and will to fight, and it was very successful in that regard.

We are not only fighting armies, but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war, as well as their organized armies. I know that this recent movement of mine through Georgia has had a wonderful effect in this respect. Thousands who had been deceived by their lying papers into the belief that we were being whipped all the time, realized the truth, and have no appetite for a repetition of the same experience. - General Sherman in a report to Union Chief Of Staff General Henry Halleck, December, 1864.

Similar tactics were used in both world wars by both sides for similar reasons.

French President Hollande was entirely correct that the attack on Paris was an act of war, but it was not 'terrorism' or mindless carnage to no purpose. After all, France has been committing acts of war against ISIS by flying 200 air support missions against both combatants and civilians in ISIS territory since September of 2014.

The tactical idea involved also made sense - to remind the West that their cities and their civilians are also vulnerable and can be reached by ISIS.

Every master of strategic thinking whether its Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, General MacArthur or Napoleon has shared certain basic principles in common. They've all agreed that in order to successfully wage and win a war, you must have clear goals, know whom your enemy is and secure your base. To that, I'd add utilizing effective leadership and motivated forces.

Not only is the West not doing any of these things, it's doing its best to do the exact opposite. To really get perspective on that, let's look at how ISIS and other jihadist entities, both Sunni and Shi'ite are waging their war against us as opposed to how we're doing whatever it is we've been doing for the past decade and a half or so.

They have secured their bases, and there's little or no fifth column within. Anyone they even suspect of betrayal or less than full commitment to victory is immediately and ruthlessly dealt with. Both their enemies and their goals are clearly defined and marked out with formal declarations of war after the Islamic tradition, which both Osama bin-Laden and ISIS adhered to. On the Shi'ite side, Iran makes no secret of their hostility to us. They want death to America and President Obama is helping them get the tools for the job.

ISIS leaders and their fighters are dedicated, brave and more than prepared to fight and die for Allah and the Caliphate. The Paris attacks were carried out by young fighters willing to give their lives to accomplish their mission. So were their successful attacks on Iraqi forces who on paper outnumbered them and were far better equipped, courtesy of the American taxpayer.

In contrast, our leaders resort to the most tortuous euphemisms to avoid actually mentioning our real enemy or even establishing more than the most vague and general goals. Unlike al-Qaeda in it's heyday, The Muslim Brotherhood, The Taliban, Hizb' al-Tahrir and ISIS, there's no declaration of war by us and no defining of whom or what we're fighting at all.

Not only have they not secured our base, but our current leadership has actually enabled the breaching of those bases, encouraging mass migration from questionable Muslim countries where Islamism and jihadist thought are quite popular.

As a result of that migration and in particular America's tolerance and even appeasement of Saudi and Emirate funded Muslim Brotherhood front groups like CAIR, The North American Islamic Trust, The Muslim Public Affairs Counsel, The Islamic Society Of North America and others, a fifth column in America is rampant. Not only are young Muslims radicalized in mosques and madrassahs here by radical imams, but jihadist web sites and platforms like al-Jazeerah, or Jihad TV as I call it are readily accessible.

As opposed to the militaries of our opponents in this war, our severely scaled back forces have seen much of their best combat leaders and experienced combat troops forced into retirement or out of the service to make way for a military that appears to be far more concerned with transgender rights, 'diversity' and placing women in combat roles regardless of whether they meet physical requirements to do so than concentrating on defeating our enemies. Retention is at an all time low. And as for faith, even mentioning G-d is likely to get you reprimanded or even bounced out of the service - unless of course, you're talking aggressively about Islam's ultimate victory over the Infidels and putting 'Soldier of Allah' on your official business card like Major Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood murderer did.

Finally, our lack of decisive leadership speaks for itself. We have no strategy and no clear goals and we haven't for years. President Obama isn't even following the old rule of 'at the very least, do no harm.' His destabilizing the Middle East and paving the way for Iranian nuclear weapons is a nightmare his successors in office as well as the American people will have to face and it will not be pretty.

Again - and I can't emphasize this enough - we are in a war with Islamic fascism, and it's supporter are far from being as much of a minority as certain people would lead you to believe. And yes, is does have everything to do with Islam. There is nothing Boko Haram, Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, the Taliban, Hizb' al Tarir, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Iranian regime or any of the other so-called 'extremists' are doing that is not sanctioned by the Qu'ran. Nothing.

That, by the way is very different from being in a war with Muslims. Many of them are decent and peaceful people. But Islam itself is not going to be reformed. It is a violent religion that brutalizes women and non-believers and was designed for world conquest. As Mohammed told his followers before he died in 632 CE, they are commanded to fight the infidels until they died, became Muslims or paid massive protection money or other tribute for their lives to Muslims and "felt themselves subdued."

Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum. and every Tuesday morning, when we reveal the weeks' nominees for Weasel of the Week!

And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council, and the results are posted on Friday morning.It’s a weekly magazine of some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere, and you won’t want to miss it...or any of the other fantabulous Watcher's Council content.

And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter..’cause we’re cool like that, y'know?

Thursday, November 19, 2015

France's socialist President Hollande's response to the attack on Paris was a desultory quickie airstrike on ISIS's Syrian capitol of Rakkah that amounted to 20 bombs being dropped, none of which did much damage. He badly needs France's Muslim vote and the anti-war left vote to stay in power, so he has no intention pf alienating them.

Marine Le Pen, leader of the rightest Front National and Hollande's likely opponent is rising steadily in the poll and has no use for such constraints. As she shows here, she is literally becoming the spirit of a defiant France in fighting Islamofascism (emphasis mine):

For the sixth time in a year, Islamic terrorism has struck France—and this time more viciously than ever before. Since then, from all corners of the world, there have been countless outpourings of friendship, salutation, and support for the admirable courage with which the French people have faced these trials. Everywhere it is sung, the Marseillaise embodies our universal determination, our unwillingness to yield to the barbarism of Islamic fundamentalism. Charles De Gaulle once said “There exists an immemorial covenant between the grandeur of France and the freedom of the world.” I am convinced the world recognizes this truth.

And yet, if the enemies of liberty have decided to attack France with such barbarity, it's because over decades our country has forgotten that liberty must be organized, that it must be defended, that it is a kind of power which must be nurtured. To forget that truth weakens freedom.

Liberty is exercised in the context of national community. It is armed with the principles of common sense, principles without hate. It is synonymous with a nation defined by strong borders, defined by our values, defined by our way of life, which is appreciated around the world.

Too often, we have confused hospitality with blindness. Not all of those we’ve opened our doors to have come to France with a love of our way of life. Today, under pressure from a European Union that renders us weaker and less free, France faces a cruel reality: It only takes a dozen terrorists—some French in nationality, but not spirit, and others capitalizing on the poorly managed migrant crisis—to take the lives of at 129 of our countrymen. It is up to us to affirm, without hesitation, that France’s freedom was built over centuries intentionally and collectively. That’s what defines a nation.

From here we must take a series of common-sense steps: We must reinvest in our police forces, our border security, our military. We must reverse a decade of disastrous budgetary decisions. We must reclaim our national borders permanently and rescind French citizenship to dual-national jihadists because they do not deserve to be considered French. We must close radical mosques, which are a site of hate. We must stop welcoming thousands of migrants and regain our national sovereignty.

We must also clarify Islam’s role in France. Our Muslim compatriots must no longer be hostage to radical Islamists. French rule of law and a renewed commitment to secularism will liberate them.

There is more: the threat we face calls us to ally with those who fight fundamentalist Islam. For a long time, I have been calling for a revision of French diplomatic policy in Africa and the Middle East. Let’s stop undercutting sovereign states, as Nicolas Sarkozy did disastrously in Libya in 2011. We need to work with Russia, Syria and Iran as well as other foreign powers including the United States which are fighting radical Islam. Let’s bring to a halt the obsolete cold wars and incestuous relationships with untrustworthy countries—I mean specifically Turkey or Qatar.

France has overcome numerous challenges in its long history. Our capacity to rebound has never failed. Many in the world know that a strong France, faithful to itself and master of its own destiny, is indispensable to world peace. Let us stand together. It is the only way to defeat, once and for all, fundamentalism and the enemies of liberty.

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Yes, once again, It's time to present this week's statuette of shame, The Golden Weasel!!

Every Tuesday, the Council nominates some of the slimiest, most despicable characters in public life for some deed of evil, cowardice or corruption they’ve performed. Then we vote to single out one particular Weasel for special mention, to whom we award the statuette of shame, our special, 100% plastic Golden Weasel. This week's nominees were all slimy and despicable, but the votes are in and we have our winner by a nose...the envelope please...

Charlie Sheen, Actor, Blowhard And Irresponsible Jerk

JoshuaPundit : I rarely pay attention to Hollywood or what passes for celebrities there, but it's finally come out that Charlie Sheen is HIV positive and has been for quite some time. While I sympathize with anyone who has this illness, Sheen apparently hid it from the world for quite some time, even paying millions to blackmailers. And he also hid it from a number of his sexual partners.

Lawsuits will of course ensue, but how much money can ever compensate for someone infecting you with HIV and potentially taking your life and the lives of others whom never made the choice to have sex with Charlie Sheen, never even met him? How much would you settle for?

It was a truly despicable, weasel choice he made, simply to protect his own vanity and image. It's the antithesis of anything remotely resembling manhood.

Actors frequently get recognition for their talents, and they also get awards. The only thing I want to add to what was written above is this. You, Mr. Sheen can accept this award as recognition for your finest performance ever in your role impersonating a man and a concerned, decent human being.

I hope somehow you come to terms with the damage your vanity caused to others, make true repentance and find peace.

-Selah-

Well, there it is.Check back next Tuesday to see who next week's nominees for Weasel of the Week are!Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum, and remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council, and the results are posted on Friday morning.It’s a weekly magazine of some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere, and you won’t want to miss it...or any of the other fantabulous Watcher's Council content.

And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter..’cause we’re cool like that, y'know?

Yes, plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose - the more things change, the more they stay the same.

It's unlikely, but recent events in Paris might just open some people's eyes when it comes to Israel and the Middle East. Kudos to Stephen Pastis, who tweeted this 2003 strip to the world yesterday with the message "It applies now as much as ever."

As Bob Marley once sang, who feels it knows it.

Welcome to the Watcher's Council, a blogging group consisting of some of the most incisive blogs in the 'sphere, and the longest running group of its kind in existence. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council.Then we vote on the best two posts, with the results appearing on Friday morning.

Council News:

We currently have a vacancy on the Watcher's Council. If you're interested in being considered for membership in the oldest, most established and most enjoyable blogging group in the 'sphere, please leave a comment (which won't be published) with your name, site name and e-mail in the comments section of any article at Joshuapundit.

You can, too! Want to see your work appear on the Watcher’s Council homepage in our weekly contest listing? Didn’t get nominated by a Council member? No worries.

To bring something to my attention, simply head over to Joshuapundit and post the title and a link to the piece you want considered along with an e-mail address (mandatory, but of course it won't be published) in the comments section no later than Monday 6PM PST in order to be considered for our honorable mention category. Then return the favor by creating a post on your site linking to the Watcher’s Council contest for the week when it comes out on Wednesday morning

Simple, no?

It's a great way of exposing your best work to Watcher’s Council readers and Council members while grabbing the increased traffic and notoriety. And how good is that, eh?